Realizing Your Age
by ncfan
Summary: Maglor comes to a realization one day. "These are Idril's grandchildren."


This is another installment in the series of oneshots and short stories, _The Care and Feeding of Partly-Human Children._

I own nothing.

* * *

The twins did not like rainy days, Maglor was noticing. They would watch pensively at windows, waiting for it to stop, watching for lightning even though they knew that thunder could only be a few steps behind—Elros and Elrond both had a tendency to jump several inches in the air whenever a particularly booming thunder clap sounded. Despite this, they would rush back to the window with each lightning strike. Maglor wondered if they just liked being scared; come to think of it, he remembered Caranthir doing something similar as a child. What they probably really wanted, though, was to be outside.

Rainy days were good for reading and writing lessons in what could laughably be called a library (a small room with a single bookshelf and two tables with chairs) in Amon Ereb, though Maglor was running into some difficulties with that.

Neither Elrond nor Elros were at all happy with the idea of learning Quenya first and not Sindarin. _"But we know Sindarin better!" _Elros would exclaim; Elrond was significantly more chary in his objections, but he seemed to feel the same way. Proper little Sindarin princes they were, Maglor reflected with a rueful smile, wanting to learn their mother-tongue first, but there was absolutely no way Maglor was teaching anyone any language but Quenya first. Fortunately, as much as the twins disliked learning Quenya first, they liked the idea of seeing words on a page and not knowing what it meant even less.

Rather more unexpectedly, Maedhros was doing his best to make a nuisance of himself during these lessons. He would sit down at the other table and on occasion give less than encouraging commentary on the progress, slow, fast or otherwise, of the lessons. He seemed quite satisfied with the fact that, for once, it was not _him_ teaching children how to read and write—it had, so very long ago, fallen to Maedhros to ensure the literacy of his six younger brothers, and one got the impression that, as much as he loved his brothers, he'd not much enjoyed having to teach them to read and write. This had the effect of putting Elrond and Elros on edge, and left Maglor seriously contemplating banning his brother from the library during the twins' lessons. _Why is he acting this way? He usually tries to _calm _hot heads, not incite them to panic._

Maglor must have been drifting off, because when he came back to himself there were two pairs of dark gray eyes staring imploringly up at him. He looked over at the hourglass sitting on the table, and noticed that the top half was completely empty of sand. They'd been at this for more than an hour, then. He put his quill down and nodded. "I think that's enough for today."

Elrond and Elros practically flew from the table. Studiously avoiding the table at which Maedhros sat, they made their way over to one of the tall, narrow windows. They sat down in the deep sill and stared out into the wet gloom beyond. The twins watched for lightning, jumped at thunder, and waited for the rain to stop so they could go outside and play. Apparently, playing inside just wasn't enough today.

Maglor drew the parchments they had been writing on over to him so he could look at them. There was a picture of what Elros probably thought a dragon looked like on his parchment; to Maglor, it looked more like one of the lizards you could find sunning on the walls in summer with wings attached. The flames falling on the unsuspecting town were a nice touch. Elrond's writing was essentially a bunch of unintelligible scribbles, though if Maglor squinted, he supposed it was _slightly _more intelligible than it was yesterday. He could even make out a few of the letters. Business as usual, then.

He'd have to be more diligent tomorrow. He was leaving for the nearby Nandorin settlement in a week to discuss trade agreements and try to pick up more grain for planting (And hopefully find some new strings for his harp). And while Maglor didn't particularly expect that to go well—it wasn't like they had a great deal to trade anymore—he was going to be gone for a few days at least, and wanted to make something resembling progress with the twins' lessons before then.

As Maglor took down a book to read and tried to ignore the drowsiness brought on by the humid, muggy air and the steady pattering of rain on the roof, he cast his gaze over towards the window. He was reminded of another child who disliked rain and would wait at the window for it to stop, so she could go outside and play. It was as if a third child was sitting there with Elros and Elrond, with long, flaxen hair and bare feet that from time to time would swing back and forth languidly.

And then his mouth nearly fell open when it finally sank in—_These are _Itarillë's _grandchildren._

He could hardly believe it. The last time he had seen Idril, she had been a young girl, nearly grown but still a child. His cousin's child (and Maglor nearly broke into hysterical laughter as he realized Turgon's probable reaction to his custody of the twins, if he had been alive to know), a pretty, golden-haired girl who could have been taken for a child ten years her junior. With nothing else, Maglor still had an image of Idril in his head as a young girl, too young to wed, let alone have children. And through Eärendil, Elros and Elrond were her grandchildren.

_But we've all been here, living, fighting and dying in Beleriand, for more than five hundred years. Itarillë is the same as me; she is older now. She wouldn't be a young girl anymore._

That just went to show him, Maglor supposed, how much time had passed him by while he wasn't paying attention. All the same, he couldn't reconcile the image of a laughing, golden girl with a mother, or a grandmother. He wasn't sure he ever would.

* * *

Itarillë—Idril


End file.
